‘I’ll never be able to now’: Pune NCP leader on the ‘thank you’ call to Ajit Pawar that didn’t go through
Nilesh Nikam wanted to thank Ajit Pawar after he was appointed leader of the NCP in the Pune Municipal Corporation. But Pawar had already boarded the aircraft to Baramati.
Ajit Pawar was killed on Wednesday morning after a chartered aircraft carrying him and four others crashed while landing at Baramati airport.
A day after he was appointed leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the newly elected Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Nilesh Nikam wanted to speak to his party chief and thank him for entrusting him with the responsibility. But Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had already boarded the ill-fated flight from Mumbai to Baramati.
“I tried to reach him on the phone at 7 am, but his office staff conveyed that he had left for Baramati. ‘You try him after he lands in Baramati,’ they said. But I could not…and I will never be able to now,” an emotional Nikam, who is set to be the leader of the Opposition in the PMC, said.
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It was Pune NCP chief Sunil Tingre who revealed that Pawar’s plane had crashed, Nikam said. “I was in shock,” he added.
For Nikam, who chose to stay with NCP(SP) chief Sharad Pawar after the NCP split and joined the Ajit Pawar faction before the PMC elections, the news has come as a big blow. “He gave me this responsibility despite the fact that I was re-elected after a gap of 14 years and that I stayed with NCP(SP) after the split,” Nikam, who served as an NCP corporator for three terms, said.
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Ajit Pawar, who was the guardian minister of Pune, had led the election campaign for the PMC and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporations. He allied with the NCP(SP) against the BJP, which put up an impressive campaign to gain control of his home district of Pune.
The BJP emerged as the single largest party in the PMC by winning 119 of 165 seats, with the NCP coming second by winning 27 seats. The NCP (SP) won three seats.
Ajit Pawar was killed on Wednesday morning after a chartered aircraft carrying him and four others crashed while landing at Baramati airport.
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